Journal of progress May 18-May 24
Though we both worked hard this week it didn't result in a lot of pictures. We moved one table upstairs and a different table away from the wall. Barbara really wants to get the kitchen painted so we can bring in the cabinets we bought off a friend. We are still not 100% they are going to work for us. Not having a fully operable kitchen is getting to Barbara. She puts off doing dishes as long as she can since water has to be brought in from outside, heated on the stove. There is not adequate space to have all of the dishes soaking until they can be washed. We often eat off paper plates but we can't cook on them. Below Barbara has covered the stove and a rack to be able to sand the mudding.
Barbara's primary way of helping is taping, mudding, and sanding.
Barbara also spent one day this week organizing the root cellar. It had become a junk collector. Rather than make dozens of trips to get everything down there that needs to go down that we had in Provo and also bring up all the junk that either needs to go some place else or be thrown away, every time Barbara goes down, she takes a box and every time she comes back up, she brings something. She has a few more trips before the task is completed. Then she needs to organize the food that is in the root cellar in such a way that it can be found until we are able to finish building the can rollers. It is all such a process.
We've had quite a windy week. Our neighbor's flag is our windsock. Sometimes it gets wrapped completely around the pole.
Below: Don is cutting out a light switch hole in the sheetrock he is hanging to finish the living room. This wall used to be the "tool wall" where currently in use tools were stored.
The last piece of drywall in the living room.
Both of us are getting tired of trooping outside to the outhouse in the middle of the night when our elderly bladders need to be emptied. Don says even though we don't have water pressure yet, we can still use the toilet and flush it by pouring water out of a bucket into the toilet. Not the best, but LOTS better than the outhouse!
Below: Barbara has started taping and mudding the toilet allcove. We have to do this before we can install the toilet. We can paint around it, but mudding and taping would be MUCH harder!
After all the taping is done, Don will connect the alcove light and switch. Then the sink. After that, we have to have a floor. Flooring should arrive in Provo Home Depot this week.
Some entries from Don's construction log:
Don hurt his back yesterday, so couldn’t domuch. Frustrating, but he did get the kick molding cut and installed in the desk alcove before he had to rest before going to work at the movie set. We got the trailer unloaded. Don says working on this house is like working a Chinese puzzle. In order to unload the trailer, he had to have a place to put the boxes. So he had to move the lumber in the living room down into the basement workshop. But there was no room in the workshop, so he first had to reorganize the lumber storage area. Then he could put the lumber from the livingroom in the basement, so there would be room to put the stuff still in the trailer, so he could work on the alcove. Meanwhile, he’s trying to get the toilet working. Before installing it, he needed to hang sheetrock in the toilet cubicle, but the interior framing wasn’t done, so he had to do that. Then he could hang the sheetrock. He had to cut the sheetrock to size upstairs, where there’s room to work, then carry it down the stairs and shoehorn it into the cubicle, piece by piece. He got it all hung, in about eight hours of brutally hard work. He stopped in the middle of the day to eat the delicious lunch Barbara prepared, and afterward made a water run. He says he’s exhausted. “Sucks to be old”, he says.
One really, really bad thing among the good: Don checked the main water tank. We’ve lost about 20 gallons in the last 4 days! This works out to a leak of about 5 drops per second. The water is just about pouring out! There’s no way to know exactly where the leak is without digging. It’s got to be somewhere between the tank and the shutoff valve, or else a crack in the main tank itself. Don says he’s getting too old for all this digging.
The cabin is getting sealed up enough that we can tell what needs caulking just by the cold wind seeping through the cracks. Slowly, we’re getting them all caulked. Biggest culprits seem to be at the tops of the exterior walls. Fortunately, most of them are easy to reach with a ladder, and easy to caulk. We should be ready to paint soon, at least downstairs. Barbara has been getting real good at mudding and taping, but she can’t reach the ceiling, so Don is going to have to do that. First coat is mudded, but not sanded.
We've had quite a windy week. Our neighbor's flag is our windsock. Sometimes it gets wrapped completely around the pole.
Below: Don is cutting out a light switch hole in the sheetrock he is hanging to finish the living room. This wall used to be the "tool wall" where currently in use tools were stored.
The last piece of drywall in the living room.
Both of us are getting tired of trooping outside to the outhouse in the middle of the night when our elderly bladders need to be emptied. Don says even though we don't have water pressure yet, we can still use the toilet and flush it by pouring water out of a bucket into the toilet. Not the best, but LOTS better than the outhouse!
After all the taping is done, Don will connect the alcove light and switch. Then the sink. After that, we have to have a floor. Flooring should arrive in Provo Home Depot this week.
Don hurt his back yesterday, so couldn’t domuch. Frustrating, but he did get the kick molding cut and installed in the desk alcove before he had to rest before going to work at the movie set. We got the trailer unloaded. Don says working on this house is like working a Chinese puzzle. In order to unload the trailer, he had to have a place to put the boxes. So he had to move the lumber in the living room down into the basement workshop. But there was no room in the workshop, so he first had to reorganize the lumber storage area. Then he could put the lumber from the livingroom in the basement, so there would be room to put the stuff still in the trailer, so he could work on the alcove. Meanwhile, he’s trying to get the toilet working. Before installing it, he needed to hang sheetrock in the toilet cubicle, but the interior framing wasn’t done, so he had to do that. Then he could hang the sheetrock. He had to cut the sheetrock to size upstairs, where there’s room to work, then carry it down the stairs and shoehorn it into the cubicle, piece by piece. He got it all hung, in about eight hours of brutally hard work. He stopped in the middle of the day to eat the delicious lunch Barbara prepared, and afterward made a water run. He says he’s exhausted. “Sucks to be old”, he says.
One really, really bad thing among the good: Don checked the main water tank. We’ve lost about 20 gallons in the last 4 days! This works out to a leak of about 5 drops per second. The water is just about pouring out! There’s no way to know exactly where the leak is without digging. It’s got to be somewhere between the tank and the shutoff valve, or else a crack in the main tank itself. Don says he’s getting too old for all this digging.
The cabin is getting sealed up enough that we can tell what needs caulking just by the cold wind seeping through the cracks. Slowly, we’re getting them all caulked. Biggest culprits seem to be at the tops of the exterior walls. Fortunately, most of them are easy to reach with a ladder, and easy to caulk. We should be ready to paint soon, at least downstairs. Barbara has been getting real good at mudding and taping, but she can’t reach the ceiling, so Don is going to have to do that. First coat is mudded, but not sanded.
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